The first satellites of the “thousand sails constellation” were sent into low Earth orbit on Tuesday, August 6, aboard a Long March 6 launch vehicle. The launch took place from the Taiyuan rocket and satellite base in Shanxi Province in eastern China. The satellites belong to Shanghai Spacecom Satellite Technology (SSST), reports .
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The “constellation of a thousand sails” is to eventually consist of more than 15,000 satellites and provide internet to the entire Earth – similar to the Starlink system of Elon Musk’s SpaceX. China intends to deliver 648 satellites by 2025 as part of the first phase of the project.
For comparison, Starlink currently consists of about 5,500 satellites, and is expected to eventually have as many as 40,000 satellites. “Work on the constellation underscores China’s big ambitions in space and Beijing’s desire to break the United States’ dominance in the sector,” notes CNBC.
China sees Starlink system and SpaceX as part of US-created ‘space hegemony’
Satellites of this type operate at altitudes of 300 to 2,000 km. notes that their presence has significant military implications. “Since 2022, when the war in Ukraine demonstrated the importance of Starlink for battlefield communications, media outlets affiliated with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have published several editorials on the threat Starlink poses to Chinese interests,” it says. These articles portray Starlink and SpaceX as part of a “space hegemony” that the United States is to establish in space to secure a “unilateral space military advantage.”
Source: Gazeta
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